Part of Gov. John Kasich's budget plan is based on a strategy created by presidents of Ohio public universities. It ties college and university funding to graduation rates.

Fewer than three in 10 adults in the Greater Cincinnati region have college degrees, and only a quarter of Ohio residents do. Those low numbers put us at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting jobs, as access to an educated workforce is the top priority for many employers. That's why Gov. John Kasich's proposal to tie more state funding for higher education to graduation rates, instead of enrollment numbers, is a good idea and has the potential to boost our economic prospects.

The proposal, part of Kasich's two-year budget unveiled Monday, is based on a plan created by the presidents of Ohio's public universities. Involving the colleges in the creation of the plan should promote their buy-in better than a plan created at the top and pushed down to the schools.

Kasich's plan ties half of the state funding for colleges and universities to their graduation rates. (The governor's budget plan also slightly increases state funding to higher education at a time when many states are slashing it, and it imposes an annual cap of 2 percent on public tuition increases.)

Some states have tried variations on this model of performance-based funding, but the Ohio plan goes further than most previous attempts to create incentives to improve graduation rates.

At the University of Cincinnati, just 59 percent of students complete their degrees within six years, and that's a better rate than the national average.

The rates for community colleges are even worse, with just 14 percent of students enrolled at Cincinnati State eventually graduating.

Those who drop out of college are usually saddled with debt but reap few of the economic rewards of a college education.

And there isn't an easy fix to boosting college completion rates, which have been falling in recent decades.

A 2010 study of the problem found that while more students are starting college now than a quarter-century ago, the share of those who finish is actually lower now than it was in the 1970s.

The study, entitled "Why Have College Completion Rates Declined?," found what many college professors notice: Today's students are less prepared academically for college than in the past.

This may be because the economic lift from a college education has prompted a larger pool of people to pursue higher education. Many of those students are also working full- or part-time, and juggling work and studies gets harder as they progress through college.

The researchers also found schools, especially open-access schools that admit all qualified applicants, lacked the resources to deal with increased enrollment.

"Students flow into less-selective schools with fewer resources, and it's harder for those schools to respond," said Michael Lovenheim, a Cornell University professor and one of the study's authors. "Students literally can't get into classes they need, so it limits their ability to get the credits to complete."

Universities can't quickly acquire classroom space and faculty when enrollment suddenly ticks up, but open-access schools don't have the luxury of controlling enrollment by turning students away like top universities do.

The drop in graduation is predominantly at less-selective schools and, interestingly, almost entirely among male students.

There's a real risk that Ohio universities would respond to the funding challenge with social promotion, easing requirements and graduating students who haven't fully earned their degrees.

Let's hope the schools don't lower their standards or try to find easy fixes to this difficult problem.

It's not just the individual students who will benefit from solutions that help them finish their degrees; we all have a stake in encouraging a more educated region and state.